


constellation dreams

by orionwalking



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Disabled Character, Chronic Illness, Galra Keith (Voltron), M/M, Slow Burn, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-05 12:27:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17324993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orionwalking/pseuds/orionwalking
Summary: With the diagnosis of a terminal, fast-spreading illness, Shiro's dreams have shattered. The stars have never seemed more out of reach than they do now, and he spends most of his married life building a grave for them.The appearance of a mysterious boy crashing into his tomatoes changes all of that.Sometimes love is a second chance. Sometimes it's the key to the stars.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> tbh i'm not entirely sure what this is. this chapter serves as a prologue, and i do have a bunch of this written. it's an exploration of illness, of broken dreams, of what would have happened if shiro had never been cleared for the kerberos mission and a bunch of other facts were mixed up and changed (like keith's whereabouts, the state of voltron, etc.). i won't spoil it too much in case you're interested in reading more, but this is a pretty heavy fic with a lot of angst and introspection. shiro's injuries and trauma come from something much more earthly this time around. 
> 
> please leave some feedback if you feel up to it. it's been forever since i've taken on a project like this and it's eating me up.

Shiro had cried the first time he looked into a properly calibrated telescope. It was his grandfather’s. The man’s large hand was firm on his shoulder as he pointed toward the cosmos, words thick and accented when he spoke the English that was Shiro’s only tongue. His parents had always meant to teach him Japanese, but time had passed and school had started, and they worried about the effect it would have on his learning. It fell the wayside the same way building a treehouse did, an afterthought of rotting wood and intentions. “Look there,” he said, though they weren’t instructions and Shiro already was. If there had been a barrier between them, one of language and distance and time, it melted, slipped through fingers as they took turns pointing. Shiro’s arm stretched, his fingers extended, up on his tip toes as if enough elasticity would fly him past the moon. “The everything, Takashi,” his grandfather said, and whether a mistranslation or a deliberate sentiment, it stuck. 

The everything. 

The mission to Jupiter was the framework of Shiro’s childhood, the anticipation of the nation seeming second to his own some days. Eager and persistent, he clipped paper copies of the updates to the corkboard in his bedroom, talked enthusiastically to confused classmates and indulgent teachers. In mangled, mostly self-taught Japanese (his father worked too much, his mother flighty), he relayed news already received to his grandfather, long distance calls between the desert of California and the countryside near Osaka. On a summer visit, sweat clinging to their skin, they watched the launch from the couch. Shiro pitched himself forward, breathless and hungry, his heart beating in time with countdown and stopping briefly with takeoff. His grandfather’s hand, shriveled now, pinched with age and arthritis, stroked at his back. “The everything, Takashi,” he said. 

When he died the next year, Shiro swore to write their name – Shirogane Takashi, shared through generations – into the constellations they both loved. Numbed by the funeral, lost and walking, he found a hill and watched the stars until the sun rose, until his body ached from the upright position and his eyes watered, though with tears or exhaustion, he didn’t know. 

His grandfather left him the telescope. 

Once, a boy he hid in a closet with before he transferred to the Garrison, the both of them perfectly aware of the cliché, told him that his dream was an obsession, that not knowing how to breathe without looking to the stars was unhealthy. Shiro, panting from the hand up his shirt and the accusation both, hadn’t known what to say. Was there a way to live without constantly looking upward, eyes focused and hazy all at once? Were there people who didn’t dream the way he did, in a way that consumed them, that devastated him? Shiro had considered it purpose. Drive. 

Some worshipped at altars, he reasoned. Shiro worshipped night skies. 

The Garrison became a home his parents’ house had never been. He found comfort in salutes, utter fascination in physics courses and training simulations. When his scores reached heights previously unseen by his superiors, he jumped classes and ranks, head spinning with the implications. There was talk of missions, exploratory but vital. 

In his second year, he met Adam. They fell in love the way you were supposed to fall in love, slowly and then all at once, talking over lunch and then talking into each other’s beds. Shiro had never been in love before, not with a person. Not like this. 

“Do you love anything more than you love the stars? Anyone?” Adam had asked one night, teasing, his breath against Shiro’s skin.

Shiro had moaned his name to get out of answering. They both knew that at the end of the day, the choice would come without hesitation. 

He never needed to make it. 

The diagnosis came on an unusually cold late spring day. Shiro could still feel the way the frost bit at his skin, the way the air had tasted when he’d sobbed. 

His discharge came a few months later. His wedding, two after. His dreams decayed in the aftermath, like so many stuttering, dying stars, gasping out last breaths before they burst. But there was no color in Shiro’s explosion. 

The first time Shiro visited his grandfather’s grave in years, he got onto his knees and cried. “I’m sorry,” he said, in English, then Japanese, because it was the only words he could think to say. 

A ring on his finger, twenty-five and sentenced to death, Shiro knew there was nothing. 

\--- 

Most days, Shiro scarcely got out of bed. His fingers had taken to shaking lately, making even the simplest of tasks difficult. A year ago, he’d had an arm amputated, the spasming and deterioration in that area too great to function, but the phantom pain persisted even with the high-tech prosthetic Adam had made sure he was fitted with. He still hadn’t gotten used to it, and removing it for sleep made his entire body clench in horror and sympathy, muted now but present. The ache in his bones and muscles swelled until they reached other parts of him, throbbing in his head, in his joints. His hair had lost its pigment. The surgeries had left scars. 

He didn’t watch the stars anymore. 

Adam went out on business often. Recruiting, was his excuse, but Shiro knew it was to keep out of the house that had become his tomb. He didn’t blame him for it. The nurse came twice a week to keep him company, more if he needed it. They made small talk, and most days Adam remembered to call him before he went to sleep. 

Shiro wondered why dying took so long. 

When something crashed in the wide expanse of the garden Adam had thought to placate with – it had never worked, and most of the plants were wilted by now – Shiro almost didn’t check. It was late, dark, and every bit of him hurt. He had no explanation for what made him throw on his robe and fight his way down the stairs, every muscle screeching with the effort. Pure curiosity, maybe, leftover from a time it had rewarded him. Or the same determination that kept him from moving their bedroom to the first floor, a quiet, lasting kind that told him there was still something else besides painkillers and re-runs of dramas.

He had no way of knowing that the boy he found, bloodied and unconscious, come seemingly out of nowhere and currently draped among dying tomatoes, would change his life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for the comments and kudos! for anyone worried, this definitely isn't over. it's actually a pretty long project and i'm really excited for you to see the rest of it. 
> 
> enjoy and let me know what you think if you wanna. i'd really appreciate it.
> 
> also follow me on twitter @orionwalking i don’t know what i’m doing there

He wasn’t moving. Shiro couldn’t see for certain in the dark, even squinting, but the outline of him was still, tangled in vines, making no sound after initial impact. He couldn’t be entirely sure that the body was a boy, even -- what looked like broad shoulders and a muscled form were the only thing that gave him away, and even that was conjecture. Besides pulling his robe on over his pajamas, Shiro hadn’t even thought to slip on shoes, and the mud from the storm a day before sunk into his toes as he ran from his back porch. Every heavy step ached somewhere deep, but he ignored it. Ignored the creak of his knees as he sunk down onto them, the pop of his joints. Because sunk into soil long gone unwatered despite the unusually heavy rains they’d had, was a man more ethereal than Shiro had ever seen. 

 

His hair was dark, noticeable even now with the only light coming from the above his back door, long, braided messily over his shoulder. He was lean, muscled, masculine, and wearing some kind of flight suit, though Shiro had never personally seen one anything like that. The purple of it seemed to pick up tones on his skin, and Shiro noted with awe that there was a stripe of skin on the man’s cheek that didn’t match the rest of him, striking and cutting all the way down to his jaw. His ears were pointed, somehow, more than he’d ever seen another a human’s, his features sharp. Above all else, he was undeniably unconscious, attractive features slack, tangled in the rotting fruits of Shiro’s garden. 

 

It dawned on Shiro, all at once and enough to have him lightheaded, that the only way any of this made sense -- the mysterious man with the multi-colored skin and the crater he’d dented into his yard -- was if someone had fallen from the sky. 

 

He tucked that one away for later, worrying instead about how he was going to get him inside. 

 

The man was battered, bruises blossoming on his skin in a way Shiro was all too familiar with, but nothing that seemed life-threatening. He was likely knocked unconscious by the impact (again, he reminded himself not to think too hard on it), but there was no sign of blood or serious trauma, which was frankly amazing considering the sound of it from his bedroom window. He had never been more grateful that he and Adam had decided to invest in more property, that his neighbors were a good drive down the road. Something told him this wasn’t a job for the police. 

 

The problem was lifting him. 

 

On his good days, Shiro had a hard enough time getting himself up and down the stairs, his legs wobbling and refusing to support the bulk of his weight. Lately he’d taken to hugging the wall on the way down, and, on especially bad pain days, sitting down and scooting like a toddler. He’d been stubborn, dangerously so, maybe, and refused to use any sort of aid, but that was beside the point. Even a quick glance at the unconscious figure he was kneeling in front of told him that while he was lean, lithe, and smaller than Shiro himself, he didn't weigh nothing. The tightness of his suit spoke wonders about the muscle underneath. 

 

But it wasn’t like he had much of a choice. 

 

Shiro grunted as he braced himself, sliding his hands underneath the man, taking a deep, steadying breath, and then lifting. 

 

Everything shook. His arms, his legs, and the rest of him, trembling under the extra weight. The tomatoes seemed determined to come with him, too, and the vines tugged as he pulled, only making matters worse. By the time he was standing, Shiro was already winded and dizzy from the pain. 

 

It wasn’t enough to keep him from going. 

 

Each step had him gasping, his muscles screaming, the man in his arms deadweight. Shiro grit his teeth and walked anyway, using the extra strength from his prosthetic to shoulder as much as he could. The walk to the couch just past the door took more effort than anything he’d tried in a long while, even the time he’d forced in a few situps and pushups when Adam was decidedly not around to scold him, but the satisfaction and exhaustion left the whole world spinning in the aftermath. 

 

Idly, Shiro noted that he now had a proper argument against the white couch Adam had insisted they buy, mud and tomato remains smudged all over it. He’d always thought it was ugly and kind of pretentious, and the floral pattern was more gay than even he was willing to embrace (which was saying something, really, because Shiro was pretty gay). 

 

Speaking of Adam. With the headrush fading and legs splayed out across his lap, that was definitely something to address. 

 

His phone was in his robe pocket. He’d grabbed it off the bedside table when he’d rushed downstairs, or as much as his body would let him rush, anyway, because despite a somewhat skewed sense of self-preservation these days, he knew it might come in handy. 

 

He had missed messages from when he’d drifted off. 

 

**Takashi?**

 

**You’re probably sleeping by now.**

 

**Sleep well.**

 

For some reason, guilt clenched tight in his gut. The intention when he’d grabbed his phone out was to let his husband know that there was an unconscious and potentially extraterrestrial man passed out on their couch and all over Shiro, but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like an exceptionally bad idea. For one, Adam would almost immediately contact the Garrison, who would take matters into their own hands. And while, in theory, that would be a good thing…

 

Maybe it was a healthy dose of sci-fi movies, but Shiro had a feeling it wouldn’t be the best thing for the man currently sleeping on him. 

 

It could be the exhaustion talking, but after carrying him over the threshold and unceremoniously dumping them both on the couch, the best thing to do seemed to be to wait. Maybe there was a perfectly earthly reason for how and why someone had managed to embed themselves in his garden. 

 

Shiro felt his eyelids getting heavy around the same time that he wondered if this could be his excuse to give up gardening for good. 

 

\---

 

When Shiro came to, he noticed several things at once. 

 

First, he’d been slapped awake. He could already feel the bruise forming beneath the skin, and the pain radiated even in his hazy half-awake state. 

 

Two, there was an extremely angry man straddling him, and his eyes were yellow-tinted purple, glowing in the dark of what he knew to be early morning, his mouth curled into a snarl that showed off very not-human fangs. 

 

Three, there was a knife at his throat. 

 

“Whoa, whoa,” was what came out of his mouth, hoarse with panic and sleep, arms raised as far in surrender as he could manage. 

 

“Where am I?” the man asked, and Shiro tried not to focus on how deep his voice was, formed almost uncertain around each word. It was something Shiro recognized immediately in people.

 

English wasn’t his first language, or at the very least not his primary. He wasn’t used to speaking it. 

 

“My house,” Shiro answered slowly, military training informing him to stay still and calm. “I found you passed out in my garden, and I brought you in to help you. I don’t mean you any harm, I promise.”

 

The man seemed to consider this. His head tilted to the side, ears perked, eyes slitted as he watched, and Shiro tried not to recognize how distinctly feline it was. It was a long few moments before the knife was lowered and Shiro felt like he could breathe again, sucking the relief in through his teeth. “Who are you?” the man asked next. 

 

It was funny, being asked that by -- was it safe to say an alien? The man’s cat-like eyes, a stunning violet now that he was looking, watched him the entire time. He went with the diplomatic answer. “Takashi Shirogane,” he said, wondering vaguely if that meant anything at all. “Everyone calls me Shiro.” He paused, lips turning up into a tired, bewildered grin. “I think I should be asking who  _ you _ are, though.”

 

“Keith,” the man answered, and Shiro blinked. Keith looked sheepish at that, and then haughty before Shiro had time to process, arms crossed firmly over his armor-plated chest. “My father gave it to me,” he added, and Shiro didn’t know what exactly to do with that information. 

 

His grandfather had discussed this at length with him, long before he joined the ranks of the Garrison in the hopes of exploration. In an infinitely expanding universe, with endless galaxies and planets inside them, there wasn’t a doubt in either of their minds that life beyond Earth existed. To doubt it was to be incredibly narrow-minded, perhaps even egotistical -- why would humans be the only truly intelligent lifeform out there? Adam had always denied it, laughing it off with shrugs of the shoulder and noncommittal remarks about the possibility existing, but Shiro had always been certain. 

 

The everything, his grandfather had said. 

 

The everything was currently still sitting on his legs, which happened to be going numb with the weight and the pain that came with it. 

 

“Could you, uh --” he started, gesturing, and he didn’t need to take another breath before Keith was scrambling off of him like he’d been burned. 

 

He backed off at least a good few feet like a spooked kitten, standing rimrod straight even as he feet scuffed the floor of Shiro’s hardwood, spreading mud and whatever else was stuck on the bottom of his boots. 

 

Shiro attempted not to process that with an alien standing in his living room, one that had just brandished a space-knife at him and demanded answers, he was choosing to focus on how said alien’s cheeks flushed a mix of pink-purple, the result a little too endearing. 

 

“Keith,” he said, which caught the other’s attention immediately, his eyes sharp and honed in on him again, “You’re not from Earth, are you?” he asked, slowly.

 

Keith shook his head. “No.” He paused. “Not really, anyway.” 

 

Shiro took a breath, trying to take that in stride. In the scheme of things, it wasn’t the most shocking news he’d ever received. “Any chance you can tell me where you  _ are _ from?”

 

That earned him a smirk. Keith noticeably stashed his knife somewhere in his belt, then shrugged. “Would you know even if I told you?”

 

Shiro considered that one. “Good point.” 

 

There was a pause, then, where nothing seemed to happen. Keith watched him with those eyes of his, stood there in the middle of his living room muddied and bruised. Then he sighed. “I’m looking for something,” he admitted. After a beat, he clarified. “Someone, actually.”

 

“They’re here on Earth?”

 

“They have to be,” he said, and Shiro noted the frustration in his tone, the scowl that settled on his features. “Everything points to them being here on Earth, and no one is doing  _ anything _ about it. They can train all they want, but without --” Keith cut himself off, wincing, and Shiro knew why. 

 

There was something dampening his flight suit. Shiro wondered how he hadn’t seen it before. Despite every inch of him protesting, he was up in an instant, cushioning the fall as Keith’s legs gave out. “You’re more hurt than I thought,” he said, stamping down the helpless feeling. 

 

“I’m fine,” Keith said, but he flinched when Shiro put pressure on what was an obvious wound. 

 

Shiro wasn’t entirely confident in his ability to get up the stairs right now, especially not with an extra body worth of weight. He got to his feet anyway. “Stay,” he told Keith, who seemed to blanch at being given an order. A hissing sound followed him down the hall, and he didn’t let himself dwell on the  _ adorable _ that echoed around his brain. 

 

The good thing about being sick was that getting injured was pretty common. Shiro didn’t like to bother his nurse too much, especially not over things he could do himself, so he kept kits around. It wasn’t too much of a struggle to get one and bring it back to Keith, wincing as he got back on his knees. That was going to be a problem when they locked up, but for now he could fight through it. “I need to get to the wound,” he said, his own cheeks heating at the implication.

 

Keith stared, wary, before he moved his hands away from it. “I’m stronger than you,” he promised.

 

Shiro had no doubts. 

 

Cutting through the suit proved more difficult than anticipated, but once he was actually there, staring at Keith’s side, he realized there was another problem entirely. His blood looked human enough, if a bit purplish, but Shiro didn’t know how infection worked for -- well, whatever Keith was, or how he healed. He patched it up the best he could anyway, watching Keith’s face for signs of discomfort. 

 

“You crashed,” he said.

 

Keith made a face. “Your atmosphere is weird.” 

 

Shiro stifled a laugh at that, surprised as it bubbled up in his chest. It had been a while since he’d laughed. “Okay, but you crashed.”

 

The look he got in return could kill. “I crashed,” Keith confirmed. “I only had a pod. It was the only thing I could take. The Blade -- the people I was with, they don’t know I’m here.”

 

Shiro thought about that. “So your ship…”

 

Keith grimaced. “It burned up. There are probably debris, but nothing --” He grit his teeth together, whether from the pain of Shiro’s fingers pressing down on him or something else. “Nothing I can use.”

 

“So you’re stranded,” Shiro guessed.

 

He didn’t get a response to that, which was telling enough. Shiro tried not to reel too much at the circumstances. There was an alien currently bleeding on his living room floor, stranded and injured, with only Shiro to protect him. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that if the Garrison got a hold of him, he would be in the lab by the morning.

 

Somehow, what was out there had come to him. It would have made him giddy if it wasn’t currently making his head spin. 

 

“I won’t take you anywhere,” he said. “I know you’re probably worried about that. I don’t work for anyone. Someone else lives here, but he’s not here right now, and…” Shiro sighed, ignoring the pit in his stomach. “And he’s not here a whole lot anyway. You’re safe for right now. I’ve got more med supplies upstairs.” 

 

Keith stared up at him, expression unreadable. Then, slowly, Shiro watched his lips pull up into what might have been a hesitant smile, or otherwise a grimace. He couldn’t be entirely sure. “Thanks… Shiro,” he said, like he was testing it out. 

 

Shiro pretended not to notice that his name sounded good coming out of his mouth, foreign and new. “No problem,” was what he managed, and it was as lame as it sounded in his head. 

 

The wound needed to be cleaned better than it was. Shiro sighed, and worked around it the best he could, until he had to shake his head. “I think you need to clean off. There’s a shower down here, and an extra bedroom. You can rest.” 

 

“A shower?” Keith asked it like he was testing the word out, confusion furrowing his brow.

 

“Uh.” Shiro realized he’d never had to explain these things before. “Water comes down. To clean you with.” 

 

“Oh, like a…” Keith said something else, but Shiro couldn’t even register it. It sounded more like a growl than a word, deeper in register than anything else Keith had spoken. He blinked, and Keith seemed to catch on, sheepish again. “Oh. Sorry. I have a translator, but it’s probably not working right.”

 

“Right.” There was a lot to take in tonight. 

 

Getting them both to the bathroom was an ordeal, but Keith insisted he didn’t need any help once they were there. Shiro tried not to notice that his cheeks had flushed again, or that he was more haughty than he’d been just a few moments ago, clearly embarrassed. He worked on crawling his way up the stairs instead, ignoring the pain in favor of a mission. Deteriorating muscles be damned, he wasn’t about to let a decidedly attractive alien walk around his house naked. 

 

Dressing him in Adam’s clothes probably wasn’t the best solution here, but it was the only one he had. 

 

After passing them through the door and grabbing the first aid kid again,Keith emerged a few minutes later. Adam’s clothes were large in some places and tight in others (Keith had much more muscle), but Shiro tried not to look too hard as he led him into their spare bedroom. 

 

“It doesn’t make sense to do anything but sleep for right now,” he reasoned, noting the way Keith winced at every movement. He eased him down, lifting the loose t-shirt to wrap the wound as thoroughly as he could. Satisfied, he sat back. “We can’t do anything tonight. You’ll be safe here, I swear.”

 

Keith seemed to consider that, then nodded. “I need to find them,” he said, though he was fading fast, his eyelids clearly heavier. 

 

“You will.” Shiro didn’t have any clue who ‘he’ was, or how he could possibly help, but it was worth assuring him. “But right now you need to rest.”

 

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, too. 

 

\---

 

Waking up in bed with a man who wasn’t his husband was a stranger affair than he could have imagined it to be, especially when said man was wide awake and staring at him.

 

Shiro yelped, eyes wide and heart pounding as he nearly fell off the bed. He flushed at the laughter that followed immediately after, grasping to the bed sheets to keep himself steady. He’d fallen asleep with his muddy feet and clothes all over the bed, and his prosthetic attached, but that seemed a lot less of a problem when he realized he hadn’t been dreaming.

 

There really was an alien in his house. 

 

“You make noises when you sleep,” Keith informed him.

 

Shiro blinked. “I snore, you mean?”

 

“Snore,” Keith repeated, rolling the word around on his tongue. 

 

“Okay,” Shiro said, slow and careful. “How about I take a shower, make breakfast, and then we can talk more?”

 

Keith didn’t seem to protest to that. Shiro ignored the ache under his skin that told him today was going to be a particularly bad pain day. He’d ignored it before, and he could do it now, fighting every instinct to get back into bed. He’d need to change the sheets later. At least he kept clothes downstairs for this very reason. 

 

He only fell in the shower twice, losing his grip. It took him a longer time than usual to reattach his arm, and putting his clothes on was harder than it should have been, but by the time he was out of the bathroom, he’d resigned himself to the pain and put it behind him. If things went a little slower, that was just how it had to be, but if he was patient with himself, there wasn’t a single limit he couldn’t surpass. 

 

Patience yields focus, his grandfather had once told him. He’d never been sure where it had come from, or if it had originated from something Japanese, but it had stuck with him. 

 

Keith was in the living room, looking utterly fascinated by his television. 

 

“If you press the button on the side, it even turns on,” he teased.

 

Keith jumped a good foot, eyes wide at being discovered. “It looks like the one my dad had,” he said. 

 

“Your dad?” He could put two and two together. “Your dad was from Earth?”

 

Keith nodded, but that seemed like all he was going to get. 

 

“Are you hungry?” he asked instead. 

 

Wary again, Keith gave another nod. Shiro was going to count that as a victory. 

 

Eggs and bacon, Shiro found out, was a good choice, and also the only thing he knew how to make that wasn’t frozen and microwavable. He tried to hide the way he slumped into his seat the moment after he’d served it, and if Keith noticed, he ignored it in favor of scarfing down the foot set in front of him, clearly starving. 

 

“You can stay here until you’re fully healed, and we can find whatever you’re looking for,” Shiro offered, trying not to sound as hopeful as he felt. 

 

“You want me to stay?” Keith asked, his eyebrows raised. He sounded rightfully suspicious. “Why?” 

 

“Because I want to help,” he said.

 

Keith stared, unimpressed. It was weird how he was capable of calling him out less than twenty-four hours in, but Shiro tried again anyway. 

 

“Because my life is boring and you’re shaking it up,” he amended.

 

He got a laugh for his efforts. Shiro noticed a bit of egg yolk clinging to Keith’s bottom lip. In the next moment, he licked it away, and he tried not to notice that he noticed that part. “You’re weird, Shiro.”

 

“Says the alien,” he muttered, and that had both of them chuckling. 

 

When he’d gone to sleep the night before, Shiro had expected to wake up exactly like he always did. To go about the motions. 

 

He’d never been so glad to be wrong in his life. 


	3. Chapter 3

Sharing his home with an alien, Shiro quickly realized, was a fascinating and sometimes frustrating experience. Besides the obvious differences in culture, the biggest problem was turning out to be entirely too human. Keith took to letting himself heal the way Shiro took to bedrest, which was to say the two didn’t mix at all. More than once he found Keith rummaging around his home after being left alone for what Shiro swore was only a couple minutes, usually while he used the bathroom or fought the battle of getting up or down the stairs. He’d already told Keith that he didn’t mind him making himself comfortable, but there was a difference between that and catching him throwing things out of his kitchen drawers, clearly in search of something.

 

“Uh,” Shiro interrupted, coughing loudly to catch the other’s attention. Keith visibly perked at that, every bit a cat with its fur raised. A beat passed, two, and then he went back to his task as if Shiro had never said anything at all. “Keith, what are you doing?”

 

“Looking for your communicator,” was the response he got, simple and clearly aggravated. With a huff, Keith seemed to give it up, turning to him with a scowl. “You really don’t have anything to contact others with? How do you live like that?”

 

Shiro dug in the pocket of his sweats, pulling out his phone and brandishing it. Keith’s eyes followed, eager and hopeful, but he sighed. “This can only reach people on Earth, and they have to have one, too. We’d have to know their number.” He felt somehow guilty as Keith visibly deflated, what Shiro took to be a worried frown on his lips. “Hey, don’t worry. We’ll find you a way out of here. It’s only been two days and you’re not healed yet, so why don’t you just relax for now?”

 

Keith glared at him, and Shiro got the feeling he’d said exactly the wrong thing. “The universe is in danger and you want me to just _relax_? Look, I get that you don’t have a whole lot going on here, but I have a mission. I’m going to finish it.” Keith paused, as if he realized what he’d said too late. He groaned, then, running a hand through those long black locks, no longer braided like the first time Shiro had seen him. “Sorry. I didn’t --”

 

“You did,” Shiro said, cutting him off. His voice was harder than he meant it to be, but there was something sinking into his stomach and settling uncomfortably, something that felt distinctly like his heart and the cement that had coated it since the day he’d been handed a diagnosis. It had been painful then, weighted and dropping, and it was painful now, lodging itself deep in his belly. It was the reminder that was always the worst. “You meant it.”

 

“Yeah,” Keith agreed, and had the decency to shuffle uncomfortably, surrounded by the items he’d discarded from his junk drawer. “I just meant you can’t understand what I have to do. I can’t stay here, Shiro. There are people waiting for me.”

 

“That’s what I thought, too,” Shiro said, surprised at the bitterness that lapped at his own tongue. By the way Keith’s eyes widened, he was, too. “But here’s the thing: the universe doesn’t wait for anyone. It doesn’t _need_ anyone. One way or the other, it’ll keep moving without you.”

 

“I have a _mission_ \--”

 

“So did I,” Shiro cut him off. Keith’s mouth snapped shut, and Shiro watched the way he bristled, eyes slitted, like he was deciding whether to bolt or not. “But then I realized it wasn’t realistic. You’re injured, Keith. You just crash landed. I don’t have a way of getting you in contact with whoever you’re with yet, but I will. Right now you need to focus on getting better. You can’t do anything before you do that.”

 

Keith stared. Shiro fought the urge to squirm under his gaze, more purple than yellow today, narrowed in on him like he was being seen for the first time. He put his hands firmly by his sides to keep himself still, his posture military-grade despite the ache, despite the prosthesis that he knew had never been a part of his uniform before. He’d stood like that the last time he’d been in front of his superior, too, back straight and eyes forward, hell bent on not breaking posture even as all his muscles protested. It hadn’t been that bad then, the degeneration. The trembling only came some days, and if he fought through it, it was almost bearable, the exercises, the simulations, the rigor he’d forced on himself through clenched teeth.

 

_I can do it,_ he’d sworn _. I can do it, sir, I don’t need –_

_Shirogane, this is our final word. I’m sorry. You’re just not fit for space travel. I wish there was something we could do, but there isn’t._

 

Somehow he knew what was coming next. What always came next.

 

 “You’re sick,” Keith whispered, like it was something to be awed by. Like he’d just discerned it in a single moment, put together a particularly difficult puzzle. Shiro watched him backtrack, review every interaction, flip through snapshots of sickness. “All the tubes you have in that room, the weird medical stuff, the way you walk…”

 

“Yeah. I’m dying,” Shiro said, like he was confirming the weather outside. He’d said it enough times that it had hollowed him out, that the admission came easy enough. Telling Adam had been heartbreaking. Telling his parents had hurt. By now it barely felt like anything.

 

“But you can’t be,” Keith protested, and Shiro tried not to be amused at the way he sputtered. “Stop grinning, you can’t be _dying_ \--”

 

“Why not?” Shiro asked, and watched as Keith ran out of things to say, his lips zipped tight again. “Because I look healthy? Because I’m so young? Because it’s not _fair_?” He listened to his own voice crack, swallowed around it. “I went through all those things, too, but it doesn’t matter. I’m dying, Keith, and soon. So let me help you. This is the most important thing I’ll ever do, and the closest I’ll ever get to being the person I wanted to be. I know you don’t know me enough to trust me yet, but I know I can help you. Can you let me try? Can you give me that?”

 

For a long few, dragging moments, Keith said nothing. Then, silently, he nodded.

 

Shiro took a breath, and felt himself smile. If there were tears gathering behind his eyes, he blinked them back before they could ever fall. He’d cried enough. “Thank you,” he said. “Now why don’t you let me make dinner?”

 

Keith made a face at that, nose twitching. “You don’t cook very well,” he said.

 

Shiro laughed at that, and, hesitantly, Keith joined in. He tried not to notice how it sounded, deep and echoing off the walls of his kitchen. “Okay, you got me there. If you hide while I get the door, I’ll order us pizza.”

 

“Pizza,” Keith repeated, and Shiro noted that for all his fluency, these were the things he seemed to get caught on.

 

“Pizza,” Shiro confirmed, grinning. “Cheese, crust, goodness. You’re about to have your life changed.”

 

“Bring it on,” Keith said, a grin to match.

 

\---

 

It was later that same evening that he realized he hadn’t called his nurse to tell her about a schedule change. She came every Thursday evening to give him the medication he wasn’t allowed to administer himself and check in, but he hadn’t even noticed what day it was. The knock on the door was a shock to the system. Shiro nearly jumped a foot out of his skin.

 

They were on the couch, one slice of pizza remaining and watching whatever was on the TV, some wildlife documentary that was Keith was fascinated by, enough to be leaning forward on the very edge of the couch as he watched the screen. Shiro had to dampen the panic that set in. A quick run through of the situation told him it couldn’t possibly be Adam, because even if he was coming home early, he would have texted to tell him. A year into their marriage and a year into Shiro’s sickness developing the way it was, they didn’t do pleasant surprises anymore.

 

Keith looked about ready to run, fangs bared, and Shiro even heard him hiss under his breath as he looked to Shiro, clearly waiting for an explanation. He hadn’t been prepared for how endearing that was, either, but he filed that way in the back of his mind with other unhelpful thoughts about Keith. “It’s just my nurse,” he sighed. “I forgot to tell her not to come. I need the meds, but she’ll be quick, I promise. Cathy likes to chat but I’ll pretend I need the rest.”

 

Keith was still perched on the couch. The doorbell rang again, then another series of knocks, and Shiro knew if he didn’t answer soon she’d get worried and call someone. If he was especially unlucky, it would be Adam, who unsurprisingly hadn’t texted him besides the usual ‘good morning’ and ‘goodnight’. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to hear from Adam, necessarily – on the days he wasn’t feeling bitter about the whole thing, he did. Sometimes more than anything. It was just a matter of having had an alien roommate for the past two days, and not knowing quite how to break it to him yet.

 

“Where do you want me to go?” Keith asked.

 

“Just stay in the spare bedroom for now.” At the face Keith pulled, likely due to the white walls and lack of entertainment in there, Shiro chuckled. “Or the study, I don’t care. Just make sure she can’t see you, okay? You look pretty human, but the purple kind of gives it away.”

 

Keith nodded, and Shiro waited until he was out of sight before he hauled himself off the couch to answer the door. He’d really been pushing it lately, so he didn’t doubt how convincing he would be when he mentioned how much he needed the extra sleep. Going to bed at eight wasn’t exactly unusual for him, mostly because some days he couldn’t think of any better way to spend his time. At least when he slept he wasn’t in pain and didn’t need to find new ways to entertain himself, reading the same books and marathoning the same dramas that popped up during daytime TV.

 

All the things he’d loved to do before were impossible now, or at least more difficult than his body was willing to forgive him for.

 

“Shiro!” Cathy’s eyes were comically wide as she reached forward to hug him, and Shiro was startled into a laugh. For all that he hated that he needed her, Cathy was a sweet, harmless older lady who genuinely cared how he was feeling. That was more than he got from most people these days. “You usually answer the door right away, I was worried. Were you having trouble?”

 

He might as well lay it on thick. Shiro had never been particularly good at lying, but fortunately he’d been blessed with plenty of charm, and he knew how to flash a smile. “Yeah, sorry,” he said, feigning sheepishness, his flesh hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “It’s been a rough week for pain. I was trying to get down the stairs.”

 

“Shiro,” Cathy started, and he knew where it was going before she’d even taken a breath to continue, “You know you shouldn’t be sleeping upstairs. There’s a perfectly good bedroom downstairs, and all your supplies are down there, too. You’re putting too much strain on your body.”

 

“Cathy –”

 

“No. You know I’m right, and it’s about time you listened.” Cathy shook her head at him, her voice sterner than he usually heard it. She ushered him into his own house, closing the door behind her and lugging her supplies as she moved them toward the living room. Shiro realized he hadn’t put the pizza away when she eyed it. “You ate an entire pizza by yourself?”

 

“I was hungry,” he offered, but it sounded more like a question. Most days the pain meds killed his appetite about as much as they killed the pain. “There’s another slice left.”

 

She seemed placated by that, and Shiro tried to hold in the sigh of relief. She went to work, chatting all the time, about her husband, about her kids, about her grandkids, about the new hit TV show and the attractive actors he might like, and he let himself melt into the couch, sinking into routine. Everything went as it normally did. She checked his vitals, asked him about his pain levels, how much he’d been eating, resting, getting out of bed. If he’d been taking his shots regularly, how he was doing mentally. That part always seemed funny to him, not because there was anything to laugh about, but because he never answered honestly.

 

Before all this, Shiro would say he was about as happy as you could get, when he wasn’t grieving or rightfully anxious about leaving home and going to military school. The sickness had stripped him of that, too, and he didn’t think there was anything left for it to take besides his pulse.

 

She rolled the IV stand in from the other room, watching him carefully as she hooked him up to it. Shiro could feel his eyes on him as he watched the meds slowly drip into his bloodstream, burning when they did, but ultimately numbing the pain. It always lasted a good day after the drip, and Shiro still hadn’t decided if the temporary relief was worth it. “How have things been with Adam?” she asked, and he had a feeling it was meant to be offhand. It came off as far too pointed.

 

“We’re fine,” he answered, stiffly.

 

“He’s not around much anymore,” Cathy prodded.

 

Shiro grit his teeth together. “He’s very busy. We’re fine, Cathy.”

 

“He’s your husband, Shiro, and I’m worried that when I can’t be here, you won’t have anyone. I know neither of us want to think about it, but you’re progressing to the later stages of degeneration. You won’t be able to walk soon –”

 

“I _will_.”

 

“You won’t.” The words threatened to suffocate him, but Cathy went on like he wasn’t drowning, shaking her head. “You need someone here to watch you. If it’s not your husband, at least a live-in nurse. I can’t make that kind of commitment, but I can refer you to someone who can.”

 

“I don’t need a live-in nurse,” he insisted.

 

“No, not now. But you will. Shiro, dear.” There was a hand on his knee, and he hadn’t realized he was glaring at the floor until he recognized he was looking down at it, the whole world tilted. “I know how difficult this is, but we both know it won’t be long now. Make it as easy on yourself as you can.”

 

_Shirogane, this isn’t the place for you and we both know it. You need to live out the rest of the time you’ve got in peace. At ease._

 

By the time Cathy was gone, Shiro’s teeth hurt from all the clenching. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but he became aware of someone watching him. Keith’s footsteps were always entirely silent, something that had spooked him on the first full day. Now it was almost comforting.  

 

“You have a husband?” Keith asked. Straight to the point.

 

“You know what a husband is?” He attempted a grin as he looked up. He swallowed against the lump in his throat, fought against the tears he knew weren’t far behind. “I guess I didn’t think about alien marriage. There’s a different word for it, isn’t there? In your language?”

 

“My dad’s from Earth, I learned English,” Keith reminded him, impatient. “You have one?”

 

“Yeah.” Shiro watched Keith fold his legs underneath him, graceful and lithe, always poised for something. Idly, he noted the stress that was putting on the wound still in his side. They’d need to change the bandages. “I have one. His name’s Adam.”

 

“How long?”

 

“A year, almost.” Shiro shrugged. “Give or take.”

 

“But he’s not here,” Keith pointed out. “And you don’t think he’ll be back for a while.”

 

Shiro ran a hand through his hair. He wondered if he looked as old as he felt, greyed out and weak at twenty-five, slumped against his couch as he fought back tears he didn’t think either of them would know how to deal with. This had aged him. Everything had aged him. “No, he’s not. I don’t really blame him. Watching someone die is hard.”

 

Keith seemed to consider that, brows furrowed and face screwed up in concentration, before he shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense,” he decided. “And besides, it’s not like – you don’t _have_ to die, Shiro.”

 

Shiro laughed. “I don’t think I have much of a choice, Keith.”

 

“Don’t you think you’re giving up?” Keith was standing suddenly, looming over him. Shiro had height on him, some bulk, too, but in that moment, it didn’t feel like it. Those fangs peeked out from his lips, his eyes more golden now as he snarled. “You’re not dead _yet_. Don’t you at least want to try to live? To fight?”

 

People were always telling him to fight. The thing about fighting an uphill battle was that it was exhausting, and sooner or later, you realized the hill was going to win. “Keith, I –”

 

“You don’t have to give up,” Keith insisted, and his eyes were so wide and convincing that Shiro almost believed him.

 

“You’re right,” he said, because not too long ago he believed that wholeheartedly.

 

In the silence that followed, Shiro managed to reign in the tears. Keith calmed down, even if he still looked agitated, settling on the couch again.

 

Keith was the one to speak up first. “Can we watch more television?” he asked, and he sounded so much like an eager child that Shiro had to laugh.

 

“Yeah. Of course. And stop sitting like that, you’re still injured. It won’t kill you to sit like a normal person.”

 

“I’m not a ‘normal person’. I’m an _alien,”_ Keith mocked from the day before, pitching his tone lower.

 

Shiro laughed again. “You’re a pain in the ass. And this time we’re watching one of my dramas.”

 

It had been a while since he’d laughed so much.

 

\--

 

The next day, he was out for the count. He knew it the second he woke up. He’d swapped bedrooms with Keith, after the other’s insistence that he shouldn’t be climbing the stairs if it was hurting him so much, and after a brief fight where he’d reasoned Keith shouldn’t really be climbing stairs, either, they’d come to this conclusion. It didn’t seem to matter because even in the spare bedroom he woke up sore and incapable of moving, this time staring up at a bumpier ceiling. Usually the medication stiffened his muscles a bit before it kicked in enough to get him going, but this was ridiculous.

 

 Shiro didn’t know how long he spent lying there, his limbs refusing to work with him, his prosthesis unattached and his leverage off, before this was a knock on his door. Shiro’s eyes wandered to the bedside table and he groaned.

 

It was well after noon.

 

“Yeah, I’m alive,” he called, because being in pain didn’t mean he couldn’t have a sense of humor about it. “You can come in, Keith.”

 

Keith looked embarrassed about something, his eyes wide as he looked him over. Eventually he stepped past the doorway, hands crossed over his chest. “You didn’t get up and make food. You’ve been doing that.”  


Shiro grinned, sitting up as much as he could against the headboard. Even that hurt, but it was worth fighting through to get a good look at Keith embarrassed for once. “You don’t know how to use the kitchen, do you?”

 

Keith flushed, and Shiro tried not to notice how pretty the color was, a light pinkish-purple on his skin. “That’s not why I came in here,” he insisted. “You can’t get out of bed?” The silence must have been telling, because he sighed. “Shiro…”

 

Shiro opened his mouth to say something, to tell him that it wasn’t so bad, really, that in the grand scheme of things, he’d had worse pain days, enough to get him hospitalized and this wasn’t it, but Keith was already walking out the door. Blinking, he let that settle in.

 

Keith was back before he could do more than get himself upright, a tray in his arms.

 

A tray with a glass of water and what looked like two dry pieces of bread.

 

“Uh,” he said immediately, trying to hold back a chuckle. Keith glared at him, so he covered his mouth with his hand, but it sputtered out anyway. “You know you have to toast the bread to make toast, right? Otherwise it’s kind of just bread.”

 

“I don’t know how to use the machine!” Keith’s face was that lovely shade again, and Shiro was pretty sure he’d do a whole lot to keep seeing it like that, which was a thought that definitely needed to be filed away with the rest of the increasingly unhelpful Keith thoughts.

 

“Thanks, Keith,” he said, and smiled, warm and genuine, taking the tray and balancing it on his knees. It was a little difficult to do things with one hand, especially when it wasn’t his dominant, but he’d gotten used to it. “I mean it. You didn’t have to.” Having an alien play nurse for him was definitely high on the list of surreal things that had happened to him, right after being diagnosed with a rare degenerative disease.

 

“Does it hurt?”

 

Shiro looked up and realized what Keith was talking about, his eyes locked on his arm. He shrugged. “Sometimes, yeah, especially without my prosthetic. It’s not as bad as the rest of the pain most of the time, so I don’t notice it.”

 

Keith frowned, and Shiro wished he had something uplifting to say. He didn’t. They both worked to get his prosthesis attached.

 

Keith settled on the bed with him, leaned back against the headboard like he was, munching on his own piece of unbuttered, untoasted bread, and Shiro tried not to notice how nice it was. Strange, but nice.

 

“You haven’t told me a whole lot about your mission,” he pointed out after a while, eyeing the man next to him. Keith had braided his hair today, and it hung long over his shoulder. “Or much about yourself at all, really. You know my big secret, so it’s only fair, don’t you think?” he teased.

 

Keith smirked at him, playing with his braid. After a few long moments, he shrugged. “I was born on Earth. My mom is Galra – that’s what we’re called – but my dad, he was human. My mom stayed with him for as long as she could, but it put him in danger. We got attacked, and they almost took what my mom was protecting. She managed to get it away, but he died protecting us.” The whole time he spoke, Keith’s head was bowed. His hands had clenched into fists.  

 

“Oh, Keith,” Shiro breathed. “How old were you?”

 

“Five or six. Young. I’ve been with the Blade for pretty much as long as I can remember.” Shiro knew what that tone of voice meant. Keith was holding back tears, or at least the beginnings of them. “It doesn’t matter,” he added after a few moments, and looked up again. That fire Shiro had come to recognize was in his eyes again, regardless of the sheen behind them, and Shiro didn’t think he’d ever admired something more. “What I’m looking for here, it’s part of what he died for. I have to find them.”

 

“You will.” Tentatively, Shiro reached out, covering Keith’s hands with one of his own. The other stared at it, confused, and Shiro fought with himself not to pull it away. “My grandfather died a while ago. He was one of the smartest, kindest, and bravest people I’ve ever met. He meant the world to me. When he passed, I…” Shiro sucked in a breath. “I didn’t know what to do. But I decided I wanted to make sure that his legacy lived on. That’s how I got through it.”

 

“What was his legacy?” Keith asked.

 

Shiro’s heart dropped again. “The stars,” he managed. “He wanted to see the stars more than anything. He thought the universe was amazing, that there were endless possibilities out there. We both did.”

 

The hand in his shifted. Keith was turning to face him properly, his brows raised. “You don’t anymore?”

 

“I do,” Shiro answered. “Just not for me.”

 

It sat between them for longer than Shiro knew how to handle. He swallowed his own heartbeat, stared down at Keith’s hand, which had somehow ended up covering his. His eyes widened when it linked with his, squeezing.

 

When he looked up, Keith was staring at him with those brilliant, otherworldly eyes. “I don’t think you believe that, Shiro,” he said. “I think you’re just afraid not to.”

 

Shiro let that sink in. “Maybe,” he agreed, and stared at their linked hands.  

 

Later, after Keith had helped him to the bathroom and they’d settled back onto the guest bed, he directed Keith to the study. Spread out on the bedsheet they mapped constellations together. “I’ve been here,” Keith would say, or, “Oh, I know where this is” or sometimes, “This isn’t right.”

 

Shiro wondered when the stars had started doing house calls, but he wasn’t about to complain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk to me @orionwalking


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